The Sober Duty of a Host

In 1949, we printed Esquire's Handbook for Hosts, a guide to eating, drinking, and being merry with friends in your own home. Here, because being a good host is just as important today, we present an except. Read, learn, enjoy.

The mark of a good host is that he has a good time at his own party — but not too good. For though he seems to be just another guest, he is really very busy staying sober enough to continue his subtle hosting.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Every man should determine early in life how much liquor he can carry without losing his poise, equilibrium, reputation and civil liberties- but knowledge of this capacity-quotient is particularly important to a host. The amount, of course, is quite variable- depending upon the type of liquor, the hour of your last meal, your metabolism and even your mood. Some men can handle with poise and even distinction a half-dozen whiskey-and-sodas, while three martinis, impel them to pinch the hostess. Others can drink over a half-dozen martinis, but are liable to be left for dead after three whiskey-and-sodas. The only way to determine how much you can drink of what, under any given conditions, is by experimentation. But experiment at other people's parties! When you're a host, watch for your own danger-signals with double care.

More From Esquire

You've had a few if...

You find yourself thinking up forceful rebuttals for an argument you lost the other day, an argument which, at the time, didn't seem particularly important.

You hold eight diamonds to the ten, jack, a singleton spade and four small clubs and bid one heart, figuring that, although you are vulnerable, a psychic bid, in an effort to save rubber, is a fine strategic move.

There is a fly in your drink, but instead of taking the trouble to remove it, you quaff down your drink, merely taking the precaution to avoid consuming the fly in the process.

The first thing you get when you switch on the radio is a jazz orchestra. You remark that they are playing a swell tune. It happens to be the one which you have heard five or six times previously without being impressed.

You start arguing politics, and make dogmatic statements about economics and sociology although you are by nature a cautious person who customarily qualifies all statements in such a fashion that you always have an out.

You tell that story in mixed company — the one which, when you first heard it, seemed slightly dubious for such an occasion.

It is just before dinner, and your passing dividends have just emptied the shaker. You fail to catch a question from the lady on the sofa next to you because you are wondering if you can get out to the kitchen to mix another batch before dinner.

You hold forth at some length on various celebrities you have encountered lately although you are chronically a person who is impressed by few of them and who actively dislikes the majority.

Dancing with a girl twenty years your junior you try that step which you have seen her Yale escort execute with such precision — and you aren't displeased with the result.

You think it might be fun to send a telegram to somebody.

You sit down at the piano, reel off a couple of tunes, and feel that you are going pretty well. You are delighted when somebody makes a request.

You are in the process of mixing another Tom Collins for yourself. It seems like too much trouble to bother with the lemon squeezer, so you seize half a lemon between your fingers, and squeeze a few drops of juice in your glass. The result tastes all right, although, when starting fresh, you customarily use all the juice you can get out of a lemon.